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On the occasion of VivaTech 2025, the Greater Paris Metropolitan Authority is accelerating the urban transformation of its municipalities and announcing the launch of 18 new pilot projects in three metropolitan municipalities: Argenteuil, Issy-les-Moulineaux and Sucy-en-Brie.

Over the course of 18 months, Paris&Co — the innovation agency for Paris and the Greater Paris area — will support the winners in rolling out, monitoring, evaluating and showcasing the selected projects, with the aim of delivering innovative solutions for the transformation of these municipalities.

The Metropolitan Innovation Neighbourhoods programme, unique in France in terms of its scale, highlights solutions that address metropolitan challenges and the urban transformation dynamics shaping the participating municipalities: adapting to climate change, local community engagement, the circular economy, management of public space, new urban services, mobility, logistics, energy and networks, construction sites...

Among the six municipalities involved in this second edition, three have already selected their pilot projects, which have been under way since September 2024: Aubervilliers, Athis-Mons and Fontenay-sous-Bois. It is now the turn of Argenteuil, Issy-les-Moulineaux and Sucy-en-Brie to host innovative solutions through to December 2026.

Sylcast will be hosted by Sucy-en-Brie, where the town’s construction sites in Val-de-Marne will serve as testing grounds for new building methods, as well as initiatives to promote nature in the city.

About the Metropolitan Innovation Neighbourhoods
Led by the Greater Paris Metropolitan Authority and Paris&Co, the Metropolitan Innovation Neighbourhoods programme aims to turn transitional areas into full-scale testbeds for developing innovative solutions to support sustainable cities. In close collaboration with local authorities, solution providers benefit from real-life testing environments and tailored support to help turn their projects into drivers of territorial transformation.

Press contact: magaux.roche@parisandco.com

Sylcast, a pioneering startup in data-driven tree monitoring, prediction and management, has secured a €300,000 pre-seed investment from Lifetime Ventures. This funding will accelerate the development of Sylcast’s innovative platform, which leverages tree-pulse signals to provide near real-time insights into tree water stress, health, and environmental responses.

A spin-out of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Sylcast transforms cutting-edge research into practical solutions for industries that rely on healthy and resilient tree populations. Built on a combination of non-intrusive tree sensors and advanced analytics, Sylcast delivers scalable, ground-truth data to inform smarter, more sustainable decisions in urban greening, agriculture, forestry and beyond.

With this investment, Sylcast will enhance its predictive capabilities by developing tree performance benchmarking tools and physics-based forecasting models. These upcoming features will empower green assets managers across industries to integrate science-driven strategies into their operations. In addition, Sylcast will expand the features of its sensor, integrating additional environmental monitoring capabilities to broaden its applications.

At Sylcast, we envision a future where real-time, science-driven insights into trees transform how natural resources are monitored, understood, and managed. By turning trees into dynamic data sources, we enable industries to make informed, proactive decisions that enhance ecosystem resilience, optimize resource use, and align human activities with nature’s cycles. With Sylcast, precision is not just innovation—it opens the door to living in harmony with the natural world around us.

About Sylcast

Sylcast empowers the monitoring and sustainable management of trees to foster more resilient and functional landscapes through ground-truth data-driven insights into individual tree water-stress and growth, tree performance benchmarking and physics-based forecasting models for given long-term objectives.

Julie-Anne Lucchetti, CEO of Sylcast “Lifetime Ventures’ investment marks a pivotal step in Sylcast’s journey to bring its technology to those who need it most—municipalities, farmers, landowners, foresters, researchers, and conservationists dedicated to preserving the essential services provided by trees. By harnessing real-time data from trees, we are equipping decision-makers with the insights needed to manage green assets proactively and sustainably. The future of environmental resilience starts with data and science-backed analytics. Sylcast is here to deliver them.”

About Lifetime Ventures

Lifetime Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm based in Japan, backing world-class entrepreneurs in deeptech for human and planetary health. Since 2017, Lifetime has invested in over 50 startups, supporting ambitious entrepreneurs to create innovations that enable humans and our planet to prosper for generations.

"We believe in the power of deeptech to address some of the world’s most pressing health and environmental challenges. Sylcast exemplifies this vision by turning cutting-edge research into a practical solution for monitoring and predicting tree ecosystems. We are excited to support their mission to bring real-time, data-driven insights to forestry and public space worldwide, leveraging the power of trees for humans to coexist better." said Koshu Kunii, General Partner of Lifetime Ventures.

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